hundreds of people involved. On the
smallest scale, we’ve been helping our
neighbors understand what this work is
about. More broadly is trying to explain
it in a way the larger community can
understand. After spending most of my
life publishing my work in academic
journals, I realized we have to describe
and advocate for our work in ways that
are more appealing to the general public,
so that’s why I’ve talked about my work
in the media.

I think scientists should routinely
get together and publicly celebrate what
science does — not just to respond to
protesters, but to show how great science
is. This is something psychological
and biomedical scientists should do
more often: give good messages to the
community about what we do.

Has the harassment you’vereceived made you not want todo animal research?

Nothing that has happened has made
me not want to do whatever research
I can to deal with this major problem
for human welfare. People will often
ask questions, such as is it right or is
it ethical to do this research? It’s an
important question. Another important
question is, what’s the ethics of not doing
the research? After all, people are dying
from addictive behaviors — opiate
overdose is completely out of control in
this country.

I will also say that these events —the firebombing, the razor blades, thethreats, the home demonstrations— naturally cause one to ask oneselfwhether it is worth it. And my answeris yes, despite the personal costs, whichhave been tremendous, despite theincessant attacks, the science is soimportant that I’m willing to accept thiskind of harassment and attacks to see itthrough.

The research has to be done now
because people are dying today.

I’m willing to accept this personal
consequence to see the work get done. n

Lorna Collier is a journalist in Chicago.

Targets of illegal action by animal research
extremists in the United States

There were approximately 220 reported illegal incidents within
the United States from 1990 to 2012. Incidents against individuals
increased from 2000 to 2012.